Problem solving for decision making;

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Problem Solving
for Decision Making
MANAGEMENT
ADVISORY SERVICES
By Gordon L. Murray
As I picture it, we in Haskins & Sells find ever-broadening oppor­tunity
in three dimensions: extending our present capabilities to
more clients; applying the techniques we already know to more
areas of a business; acquiring capability in entirely new techniques.
What does this mean? In the first dimension we do tax and MAS
work for those who once were only audit clients, tax and auditing
for MAS clients, MAS and auditing for tax clients, and all three
for more new clients. The second dimension is not so obvious, and
cost accounting furnishes an example. Think of cost accounting and
you immediately think of the factory and production. But adapt
cost accounting techniques and you can apply them in pre-costing
to evaluate designs or plans, to marketing and distribution, to indus­trial
relations (e.g., weighing the effects of wage demands), to deci­sions
on buying capital assets, and to costing clerical operations.
Other techniques offer similar opportunities for broader application.
The third dimension, acquiring capability in new techniques,
leads to extending the very scope of our services. Some of this
extension comes simply from keeping abreast of new develop­ments;
some comes through conscious efforts to broaden our quali­fications
in particular areas; some comes through demands of busi­ness
itself or through regulatory requirements.
MAS Grows with Complexity
This may all sound highly theoretical, but I find much practical
evidence of it in our management advisory services, particularly
when I think of how far our services have ranged since ten years
ago, when MAS was known as the Systems Department, or five
years ago, or even since 1963. There has been a very great growth of
MAS both in the profession and in the Firm. Why is this so? Why
does business turn to us so much more frequently and why are cli­ents
more receptive to our suggestions? The answer in one word:
complexity. Let me explain.
In our private lives we long for the simple life, but it never seems
to arrive. Contrarily, more and more decisions are forced on us
by an ever-widening array of choices: more ways to spend our
money, more modes of living, more types of transportation and
communication, to name but a few. The more alternatives, and
particularly those that are new or outside our experience, the more